


A Better Man

by JDSampson



Category: Project Blue Book (TV)
Genre: Emotional Baggage, Gen, Light Angst, One Shot, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-17 00:47:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21045542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JDSampson/pseuds/JDSampson
Summary: After Abduction, Quinn has some thinking to do.





	A Better Man

**Author's Note:**

> I've been stuck so I thought I'd try a quick stream of consciousness story. I wrote it in a few minutes in one sitting and tried not to edit. I hope it works for you.

_I think I’m better when you’re around._

He’d meant it when he said it. Funny, that. Six months earlier, he wouldn’t have even had such a thought. Not that he didn’t have his faults – he did and he knew it. But six months ago, he wouldn’t have been able to face that fact. Face up to the idea of being a better man.

Anyone looking in, would have thought that was the Air Force’s job – turning an undisciplined, egotistical boy into a better man. Six months ago, Quinn would have thought so, too. But not now. Now, when he was home alone with his glass of Scotch and his third cigarette, he knew the truth. The Air Force had taught him how to be a man, for sure. He’d learned discipline. He’d learned that he had a lot to learn. He’d aged at twice the speed of the boys before and after him, because being dropped in the middle of a war will do that to you.

Yes, the Air Force had certainly taught him how to man up, but not how to be a better man. In fact, they’d taught him the opposite. The military taught him how to lie. How to kill. How to crack another man wide open with terrifying mind games.

The Nazis also got credit for shaping Quinn into the man he was today. They taught him how to hate. They taught him about the depths of man’s depravity, and they taught him how to crawl into his own head for protection when the pain got too bad or the screaming too loud.

That was probably the most valuable lesson he’d learned during his formative years; how to shut off your humanity. It was a skill that had kept him from going insane while Jimmy Dawson from Cleveland swung from the noose he’d made out of his uniform in the very next cell.

Then Allen Hynek came along and changed everything.

Not at first, of course. At the beginning, Quinn had every intention of being in charge and staying in charge. He was a leader of men and military men did what they were told. Right or wrong, didn’t matter. Facts or lies; if he gave an order it was followed to the letter. Just as he followed the orders handed down to him by the Generals. Close the case. Reasonable explanation. Move it off the front page.

Hynek wasn’t a soldier but that didn’t matter. Everyone could be manipulated if you knew what they wanted in their heart. Hynek wanted to be the smartest man in the room and he wanted the extra paycheck. Greed and ego; two factors that made a man very easy to control.

Quinn laughed at his own naivete. The wily, quirky, stubborn professor had balked at the leash from day one and now Quinn knew there was little he could do to reign him in. Little – but not nothing.

There was still that giant ego that left him open to flattery.

_I think I’m better when you’re around. _

Quinn tried to convince himself that his statement was nothing more than another bit of clever persuasion. Because losing Hynek would be a pain. It would likely mean breaking in a new partner and. . . .

Quinn threw back the last of the Scotch then set the glass on the table in front of the couch. He turned and laid down, stretching out on the full length, eyes starring up at the smoke rising toward the ceiling.

Beyond the ceiling was the sky and stars. Stars with names that Hynek could rattle off the way Quinn could name all the parts of a plane. Each star had a story to tell.

Hynek had opened the world up to Quinn in a way he’d never experienced before. Funny, because he too had dedicated his life to the sky, only not so high up.

There was talk of sending a man into space in a rocket. Quinn closed his eyes and pictured himself up there looking back at the beautiful, blue marble that was the Earth. Because of Hynek, he could imagine it. Because of Hynek, he could believe that there was life out there trying to contact us here. And while it frightened him to the very core, he desperately wanted to make contact, too. Not with songs, and static, zooming lights or vibrating cars. He wanted to face them, the way he’d faced the enemy and won.

Aliens couldn’t be worse than Nazis.

Quinn was sure he could handle a close encounter.

What he couldn’t handle was doing it alone.

He’d used all the Nazis had taught him about disassociating when he saw Hynek’s resignation letter on his desk. Had to go cold and block out his feelings because letting it in would hurt too much.

They were partners.

They were more than partners and Hynek was ready to throw it all away?

Quinn crushed his cigarette out in the ashtray then slung his arm over his forehead.

It wasn’t flattery. It was the truth. Thanks to J. Allen Hynek, Captain Michael Quinn was a changed man.

“Stick with me, doc. There’s so much more to know.”

Quinn closed his eyes and drifted – beyond the ceiling, above the clouds, higher than any plane had ever taken him. Up into the stars and with a quite mind and a heavy heart, he listened to their stories.

  
The End.


End file.
